In this course, you will learn various skills and techniques creative writers use to develop a sustainable practice of writing in the contemporary field. As a community, we will learn a great deal about each other by writing across various modes of art-in-language and describing how our writing works and what it does through various methods centering on close examination of language.

In addition to this, you will develop other valuable skills contemporary writers use to turn the habit of writing into a professional practice including generating new work, critical reading and written response, blogging/online presence, performing work on the page and aloud, submitting work for publication, and sharing critical responses to texts.

REQUIRED ITEMS

A composition book or journal (no wire-bound please) of at least 80 pages in length.

A collection of stories, poems, or essays published within the past ten years and surrounding critical reading (reviews, essays, bios., blogs, etc.) on that author. List of choices TBA.

An online or print journal published in 2008 or 2009. List of choices TBA.

A note on texts: Texts chosen for this class are hybrid texts that tend to blur borders between genres and defy classifications. This is to foster an attitude of practicing writing and not worrying too much about producing a certain kind of product from that practice. As a teacher, I have not studied any of the texts we are examining beforehand, so we can have an authentic readerly experience without my seeming to be the “expert” on a text. In addition, it is important to me to allow you to choose your own texts to read because this mimics what writers who are not in a writing class actually do, and my greatest goal is to get you to keep up writing once class ends.

*Note: These are instructional books or collections of exercises that may help you generate more work or get a better understanding of what it means to be a practicing writer. We will use exercises or readings from some of them to augment the reading list as appropriate.

WHAT I VALUE AND EXPECT

trust in and respect for yourself and each other

habitual practice and effort

specificity and attention to detail

curiosity and inquisitiveness

critical inquiry and analysis

taking risks, making messes, experimenting

being in class (physically, mentally and spiritually)

being prepared (reading texts to the point where you can discuss them or raise insightful questions about them, making deadlines, being on time)

keeping an open mind about what creativity is, what creative writing is, and what art-in-language is

fun and play

plasticity (bending the class to get what you want)

excellence in all you do (you choose to be here, choose to give your best effort on everything we do)

The Work

WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

We will spend time writing at the start of each class. Early in the semester, these assignments will focus on invention or generating new work. We will try to write in new ways, using a variety of new techniques that differ from our home practice.

Many writers today keep blogs as a means of social networking and critical engagement with the contemporary community of creative writers. For our purposes, your blog will be a place to publish critical responses to readings and other activities, write informally about your writing processes, create visual accompaniments to presentations, and engage with other bloggers in this class.

I am an avid blogger and found access to the community of poets in Chicago through blogging and using the blog interface to start a do-it-yourself journal called Seven Corners (www.sevencornerspoetry.blogspot.com) that publishes Chicago and Midwestern poets.

I follow blogs of many types in Google Reader. I highly recommend this practice for keeping tabs on what our class and the larger community of writers is up to.

321 RESPONSES

A 321 Response is a “micro-paper” concept I have devised to make it easier to respond to readings, discussions, workshops, activities, etc. on your blog. As a micro-paper, these responses should be about 300 words. Since the responses are blog writing, focus on dividing the response into short paragraphs that are easily readable in the blog interface. The 321 Response goes as follows:

Write about three things you learned or points you feel were most important or useful in the text, discussion, workshop, or activity (please note that three points does not equate to three sentences)

Write about two things or points you think need to be further clarified

Write a good question for class discussion to finish your response. This is a great place to connect your response to the greater world: other classes you’re in, current events, separate ideas you are thinking about, etc. Questions can also help you be ready for upcoming discussions and help you, the students, control the direction of class discussion and learning.

PORTFOLIOS

My engagement with your work in this class will be via two portfolios: a mid-term portfolio of drafts and a final portfolio of finished work.

Mid-term Portfolio

The mid term portfolio is due on Thursday after the seventh week of class. As writers you should set a goal for yourself of writing for 30-60 minutes daily and producing one page of work per week you are ready to show off. Therefore, the Mid-term portfolio will be a showcase of 7-10 pages of work in any genre that will be read and analyzed as drafts . You will include at least one detailed response question for every two pages (what kind of feedback do you want?). On the Thursday of the seventh week of class, you will trade your portfolio with another student in class, who will read, mark up, and respond in writing to the portfolio, staple the signed response to the back of the portfolio and deliver it to me on the following Tuesday. Then I will offer feedback on the mid-term portfolio with a mind to describing the text(s) and thinking about how it/they may be revised.

With the midterm portfolio, you should include a submission to Euphemism. Fall deadline TBA.

Final Portfolio

The final portfolio will be turned in on the Thursday of the 14th week of class. It will consist of 15-20 pages of texts that you feel are excited about. You should pay attention also to arrangement of the texts in order to make different stories, essays or poems “talk” to one another. The portfolio should be accompanied by a cover letter 600-800 words in length describing the choices you made in writing and arranging the texts and other things you think I may want to know as a reader. I will respond to your text in letter form, attempting to describe what the text is doing and situating it among other contemporary writing. Please also include the journal you did your longhand composing in (it should be about full). All this can be included in a dossier-type file folder with your name marked clearly on it.

With the final portfolio, you should also enclose a submission to a journal (that is not Euphemism) of your choice in an envelope with postage appended. I will peruse the submission and mail it on your behalf.

MEETINGS

You will meet with me twice during the semester because I feel that one-on-one meetings will provide specific and customized feedback related more closely to your work and interests as a writer. It is also important to meet and talk about creative-writing-related topics outside the classroom space. During one meeting, we will read closely a text or texts you wrote and discuss what they are doing and your motivations for writing them. In the second meeting, we will discuss the collection and/or journal you chose to read. Each meeting should be approx. 20-30 minutes, and the meeting discussing your work should be early in the semester, within the first five weeks.

FULL-CLASS WORKSHOP

Everyone in class is required to have their work discussed by the class at least two times or more, time permitting. I will make the workshop schedule. The week before you are to workshop, you will be required to bring a copy of your work for each person in the class. Please print your work ahead of time and be organized with enough copies for everyone. There will be a lot of paper changing hands in this class. Limit work for workshops to one page.

You will be required to respond in writing to other writers’ work. Please type about ½ page single spaced describing what you think the work is doing and your general response and comments on the work. Staple your typed response to the original work. Please also mark up the text itself with specific notes, explanations, etc., and be ready to give your signed text to the author when the workshop finishes.

SMALL-GROUP WORKSHOP

You will be given class time each week on Tuesday to meet with other people in your small group. I will arrange small groups after the three weeks of class and these will remain constant through the semester so group members become familiar with each other’s work. Small-groups will have the freedom to make decisions about how they will give each other feedback, but I encourage each group to bring paper copies of work for one another, read it aloud and respond both verbally and by marking up texts, emulating the design of the full-class workshop and changing it when appropriate.

PRESENTATION

You will give a ten-minute five- to seven-minute presentation on the collection of poems, prose, or essays you read on your own including a reading of an author’s work that exemplifies the collection you read, your summary of critical reception of the work from reviews, essays, etc., and your specific thoughts on how this writer might influence your own writing OR and give a presentation on the journal you read including reading work that exemplifies the journal, submission details, journal affiliations, editors and their background(s), etc. Your presentation should use the blog and classroom technology for visual accompaniment.

PARTICIPATION

Be ready and open to offering your voice in all phases of this class: as a writer, critic, peer, friend, etc. The substance of our discussions determines the content of the class. I do not have prepared lectures, etc. Take ownership of your education by participating in every class.

Assessment

FINAL GRADE

I don’t believe in assigning a letter grade to creative work because it limits your ability to follow your instincts and curiosity as a writer by forcing you to write work you think I will like.

That said, we are in an institution that wants me to give a grade for this class. Therefore, completing the following objectives with gusto will determine your grade:

Community Participation Grade (50%): includes attendance, participation, blogging (at least twice per week), meeting deadlines with creative and critical writing including workshop responses, meeting with me twice, and presenting on the work (collection & journal) you chose to read on your own.

Portfolios (50%): The class will negotiate how these will be evaluated during the course. All deadlines must be met on time to pass the course.

The instructor reserves the right to assign the final grade.

EVALUATIVE COMMENTS AND FEEDBACK

Descriptive comments and feedback from me will be offered in response to work in portfolios and during meetings. I will participate in full-group workshops only to facilitate and offer comments (think of me as a moderator).

Course Policies & Miscellany

ATTENDANCE POLICY

You may miss two classes with no questions asked. Three or more missed classes will result in a lowered final grade, usually by one letter per missed class. Illnesses and emergencies are considered excused absences if an e-mail is sent. Please communicate extended absences due to illness to me at your earliest convenience.

ATTENTION POLICY

During each class, you will be asked to toggle between different activities including, but not limited to, class discussion, small-group discussion, project invention, research, drafting, workshops, lectures, revision and other writing and reading assignments. Make sure you are able to focus on the task at hand for the full amount of time allotted by the instructor.

FREE SPEECH & RESPECT

Academics often focus on objects, texts, opinions, and events which may evoke strong opinions and emotions in scholars at all levels. You might find some of the texts and topics we study to be controversial. Though I will try not to purposely offend anyone, there may indeed be moments in this class where you are shocked, offended, or have your worldview challenged.

That said there will be differences of opinion between you and the text, your classmates, your groupmates, and within the class as a whole. Please be prepared for such disagreements and remember:

someone will eventually disagree with you, so please treat those you disagree with as you would like to be treated were the roles reversed

you are arguing positions, not people, so try not to take this personally

one of the ultimate goals of academics is to account for a multitude of perspectives

No opinion or worldview is really worth having if you are afraid to hold it to scrutiny, so try to enjoy the opportunity to examine your beliefs. You can (and should) feel free to believe whatever you want. You are required, however, to make every available effort to back up, justify, and support any claim you make with specific information. In academics, we tend to take seriously those positions that are well thought out but easily dismiss rash opinions that are unsupported.

In a creative writing workshop, especially, it is important to create a middle space between politely praising a work and finding flaws for the sake of finding flaws. In the middle space, we can describe what a text does and state our informed analysis, with a commitment to making the writer more effective and more aware of what the work is doing.

DISABILITIES POLICY

Any student needing to arrange a reasonable accommodation for a documented disability should contact Disability Concerns at Fell Hall: 438-5853 (voice), or 438-8620 (TDD)

CONTACTING THE INSTRUCTOR OUTSIDE OF CLASS:

Please feel free to contact me by phone, e-mail or during office hours/by appointment as you see fit (see above). It is important to me to be approachable for students. Be mindful, however, this class is not the sum total of my life. I am also a student, husband, poet, friend, etc. and need to spend time in those roles. If you wish to contact me, please have a specific query or purpose for doing so.

NOTE

**This document is a work-in-progress, and I reserve the right to alter the content in any way as needs arise. If any changes are made, you will be notified.**